Israel is Isolated, Needs Sane and Steadfast Friends

This post just went up at the Telegraph, where they gave it a sensationalist title to attract readers. As the editor said, “Now let the s*** storm begin.” Sort of like Max and The Wild Things… not (check the comments – wow!)

Israel has rarely been so isolated.

Bordered north and south by Jihadi entities – Hizbullah and Hamas – that have armed with missiles, itching for the moment when, behind their own civilian populations, it can rain down death upon Israeli civilians, forcing Israeli retaliation that inevitably causes Palestinian civilian casualties.

An Arab Spring that has unleashed waves of anti-Zionism and empowered the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the first and most constant enemies of the Zionists.

Its closest “allies” in the Muslim world now turned or turning against it – Turkey, Egypt following in the lead of Turkey: the closing of the Israeli embassy in Ankara, followed soon after by the takeover of the embassy in Cairo, illustrating how both bottom-up and top-down forces in the Muslim world militate for confrontation.

And now, in a few days, a Palestinian authority about to use the UN – currently a bastion of anti-Zionism – as a means to further isolate Israel diplomatically and legally.

Rumors are, that it’s so bad, that that stiff-necked right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu is under heavy pressure to be more placating, to calm the storm.

Of course, in so doing, Israel would be playing the role of sacrificial offering on the altar of Jihadi warfare. Contrary to the exceptionally naïve expectations of the proponents of such a conciliatory stance, a reasonable, apologetic, concessionary Israel will not appease Muslim hatred, nor calm the roiling waters of Arab anger. On the contrary, it will play directly into the hands of the Jihadis who aim at the, to us, ludicrous, goal of world domination.

And any Western country that thinks sacrificing Israel in this manner will improve the situation, rather than weakening itself profoundly in a global battle it should be winning hands down, is deluding itself. Instead of pouring water on the fires of religious war – something virtually every thoughtful Westerner considers the most dangerous and destructive of forces – they would be pouring oil on the Jihadi apocalyptic forest fire that grows with every passing year. If you’re worried about global climate warming, shouldn’t you also be worried about global Jihad warming?

Indeed, the situation of the Turks is so perilous, that one (typical) conspiracy theory circulating in among them now is that Obama has been encouraging Erdogan’s intransigence so that Turkey will enter into a disastrous war with Israel and end up losing not only to them, but to their troublesome neighbors, the Kurds. Have Egyptians really believed their fantastic narrative about defeating Israel in 1973, a victory snatched from them (rather than from the Israelis) by meddlesome Westerners? Is the mob mentality in the street and in the media, so much in evidence in 1967, still capable of driving them to a war with Israel?

Of course such pushback might lead to war. No one in Israel wishes for war. Every soldier’s death and every dead civilian on both sides, is experienced as a national tragedy. Unfortunately, even impotent venting can lead Muslim leaders down dark tunnels that they can’t escape. The extremist street can and has propelled them into following through on their rhetorical flourishes and drum rolls. Foolish Arab leaders, fueled by false pride, will lie to each other about their capabilities, as Nasser did to the Jordanians in 1967, forcing themselves into confrontations that will cost them, the West and Israel dearly.

In other words, Israel needs allies who love life, freedom, and critical intelligence. It needs them the way the Dutch needed the English as they tried to survive 80 years of vicious warfare that went on around them, and the assaults of the imperial neighbor, Spain. It needs them as the Czechs needed the Western democracies to protect them from the Nazis’ insatiable appetite. Israel needs people with discernment and a lively instinct for self-preservation.

If the West had the courage of its democratic convictions, it would make it clear to the representatives of the “Arab Spring” that the barrel of the gun only makes it possible to build democracies, but that sustaining them demands far more. It would tell the Palestinians – not just the leaders, but the people – to start doing the kinds of things that will lead to peace rather than conduct a war of ethnic cleansing masquerading a peace. It would explain to the Egyptians that scapegoating a neighbor when your own government continues to fail its people only makes the problem worse. NATO would tell the Turks to keep their ships out of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Of course that would mean that we in the democratic West begin to understand our own political history, and appreciate that democracy is not merely giving the people the vote, that military alliances don’t give a free hand to hostile partners. Without a democratic culture of fairness, tolerance, ability to self-criticize, and respect for the “other,” and can, therefore, enter into positive-sum relations with the other… all attitudes for which there is little evidence (and much counter-evidence) in current Arab political culture, one can expect those newly empowered voters to fall prey to the first demagogue who sounds the right notes.

A Westerner can say to me, “Forget it. They’ll never change. And if we criticize them, we’ll just alienate them, even provoke them. Israel is lost.” Of course, that also means we Westerners are lost, that we just delay our place on the crocodiles menu.

11 Responses to Israel is Isolated, Needs Sane and Steadfast Friends

Your every word is correct. Great assessment of a sad truth. 1939 all over again, but this time we’ll fight back with all our might, so that 50 years from now our grandchildren will hear that it never happened. History will repeat itself.

OT, how do you pronounce “demopath”? In particular, is the “e” long as in “free” or short as in “bed”? The first sounds more natural but the second fits better with “democracy”. I find myself wanting to introduce the term into political discussions but have not for fear of settling on an incorrect pronunciation.

The speech is by Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution in Iran.

Translated by Laleh Gillani

The website on which this video was originally hosted was seriously hacked shortly after this video was posted there.

PLEASE BE AWARE: I think that visiting the hacked original site which hosted the video, the site lenziran.com, may compromise any computer that visits it, or may, at least, record, and provide to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRIGC), the ip address of any computer that visits it.

Fatah Official States the Real Goal of the Illegal Current Fatah-PLO-PA ‘Palestinian’-Arab-State U.N. Bid (an example of audio-video footage that Western news mass-media outlets would not show; The political leadership of Israel must get their act together and start to act like normal human beings and verbally defend their nation like normal human beings and communicate the factual history and current reality of the situation to the world; The survival of the nation of the Jewish people is at stake)

Abbas Zaki: “The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go.

“If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end.”

[…]

“Who is nervous, upset, and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama… All those scumbags. Why even get into this? We should be happy to see Israel upset.”

[…]

“If we say that we want to wipe Israel out… C’mon, it’s too difficult. It’s not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don’t say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.

“I want the resolutions that everybody agrees upon. I say to the world, to the Quartet, and to America: You promised, and you turned out to be liars.”

The YouTube channel palwatch ( http://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch ), which is the YouTube channel of Palestinian Media Watch ( palwatch.org ), which is an organization that observes, and translates into English, and posts, with English subtitles, content of the television media of the Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority and Hamas television stations, has been terminated. Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority and Hamas, on their television stations, state, in Arabic, their intentions to annihilate Israel, and broadcast racist genocidally anti-Jewish propaganda. Palestinian Media Watch presents, with English subtitles, that programming broadcasted by Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority and Hamas. Palestinian Media Watch endeavors to present, to the world, that programming broadcasted by Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority and Hamas. The YouTube channel palwatch ( http://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch ) of Palestinian Media Watch ( palwatch.org ) had several hundred video clips of the television media of the Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority and Hamas television stations.

Now, navigating to the YouTube channel palwatch ( http://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch ) results in there not being displayed the YouTube channel palwatch, but, rather, instead, results in there being displayed a page which contains the following message:

“This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement.”